>Chris Partridge schrieb:
>> Ingvar,
>> In many philosophical contexts it is important to keep *sets* (abstract
>> non-temporal entities)
>>
>> [Chris Partridge] I believe David Lewis (In Plurarity of Worlds) rails
>> against this interpretation. He sees sets (especially small finite sets
>> whose members are not scattered) as clearly concrete, with an obvious
>> spatio-temporal location. Can I put that on people's reading lists :-).
>>
>>
>> whose members are spatiotemporal entities
>> distinct from the *aggregate* (Mario Bunge) or the *collection* (Peter
>> Simons) of the same spatiotemporal entities.
>
>Yes, please, put it on the reading list! This would make it clear that
>as soon as the distinction between 'abstract non-temporal entities'
>(sets, numbers, universals, propositions, etc.) and 'concrete
>spatiotemporal entities' (you, me, the things around us, molecules,
>etc.) is accepted, a philosophical-ontological problem arises: does it
>nonetheless make sense (and can it even be true) to say that abstract
>entities exist only in space and time? My positive answers can be found
>in my paper "Roman Ingarden and the Problem of Universals", but (being a
>newcomer here) I have got the impression that such discussions are far
>beyond what this forum has been created for. (01)
I think that a related question might be within
scope, however: is it any USE to say that
abstract entities exist in space and time? Does
that viewpoint in any way simplify ontology
writing, or bring together disparate ways of
expressing something into a single framework, or
facilitate interoperation? Or, on the contrary,
does it lead to the need for artificial
work-arounds to avoid unfortunate
inconsistencies, or require axiom writers to use
a certain artificial discipline, hence probably
leading to errors, etc.? Or (like most
philosophically motivated ontological ideas) does
it do both, so have both advantages and
disadvantages? (02)
BTW, I agree it makes sense to put everything in
space and time. (If numbers exist at all, surely
they exist *now*.) Which is fortunate for me,
being a dyed-in-the-wool nominalist who doesn't
even believe that numbers are real :-) I
wouldn't suggest that a user community subscribe
to my peculiar philosophy, however, and I see the
pragmatic advantages of Platonism, and am even
willing to use modal language, with of course the
private perspective that it is all completely
fictional. (03)
Pat (04)
>
>Best wishes,
>Ingvar
>
>
>--
>Ingvar Johansson
>IFOMIS, Saarland University
> home site: http://ifomis.org/
> personal home site:
> http://hem.passagen.se/ijohansson/index.html
>
>
>
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